GeoStor Updates and Outages

Outages

We are currently experiencing issues with our FTP server so if you are unable to get to an FTP link that worked previously that is probably why. I expect to have this resolved by Monday but there are no guarantees unfortunately. On to happier things…

Updates

We have added some pretty cool features and fixed some more bugs as usual. We also have some exciting things that are up and coming as well.

• You can now save your download preferences for email, format and projection. Just click the checkbox where it says and click submit. If you want to change your preferences, just click the checkbox again and submit your download.
  
  • CAVEAT: You have to have cookies enabled in your browser to use this feature!
    
• I have developed a widget that allows you to search GeoStor from your own website, pretty sweet huh? See the next bullet for more information.
  
• I have been working hard on documenting the GeoStor API so people can start using our services and have it pretty much finished. Just click the Developers link at the top of the home page. I will also be posting some more of our code at some point in the future as well. If you are going to the AR GIS User's Forum conference in Eureka you will get to see almost all of it on my poster. J
  
• PLEASE NOTE!!! Not all these changes have been pushed out to production yet but should be there by Monday.
  

Up and Coming

• We are migrating from web map caches to ArcGIS Image Server, there are some advantages and disadvantages to this move but it will benefit everyone in the long run.
  
  • Advantages
    
    • Using AIS will reduce our storage needs for raster by half if not more.
      
    • It will drastically reduce the amount of time we spend working on raster data.
      
    • It is faster in ArcGIS products than the map cache for some odd reason.
      
    • We will be able to offer any imagery we have as a service with very little overhead (think archived rasters…).
      
  • Disadvantages
    
    • All links to our imagery will change, unfortunately.
      
    • I'm not sure what the impact will be to our servers resource-wise as I am unable to reproduce the production load in my development environment.
      
    • AIS looks slower in web applications than a map cache although it isn't much slower in total load time.
      
• I am finishing the FTP Server migration next week so we will be on all new hardware and this is a step in the process to migrate to AIS as well.
  
• We are migrating to SQL Server 2008 as soon as I can get it installed and move everything over.
  

Sorry this was such a long post but it has been awhile since I've posted on the blog and had a lot to cover!

Glen

GeoStor Blog: http://geostor.blogspot.com/